Seitan: Good Or Bad?

October 16, 2012

Seitan is becoming increasingly popular in today’s cuisine. It’s no longer only vegans and vegetarians who are eating it. Its resemblance to meat paired with its high palatability makes it an appealing choice to almost everybody. Brown in color and chewy in texture (but not weird chewy), seitan easily absorbs flavors and seasonings.I try it in several different recipes, and there’s no denying that it tastes pretty good, especially if cooked right.However, the fact that it’s basically 100% made of gluten puzzled me a bit. So I asked myself: is it healthy to eat seitan? I did some research, and here’s what I discovered.

What exactly is seitan?

Seitan, also known as wheat gluten, wheat meat or gluten meat, is a food made from gluten, the main protein of wheat. It is produced by washing wheat flour dough with water until all the starch dissolves, leaving insoluble gluten as an elastic mass, which is then cooked before being eaten.In other words seitan is basically 100% gluten.

Nutritional profile

A serving of seitan (3.5 oz) has around 118 calories, 3 grams of carbs, 24 grams of protein and is almost completely fat and cholesterol free. You would expect a product made from wheat to be higher in carbohydrates, but seitan is made by removing all of the starch from the wheat (the source of carbs) leaving only gluten, which is mainly protein.Notwithstanding the high protein value, due to its low content of lysine (one of the essential amino acids), seitan is not generally considered a source of complete protein.

The good about seitan

“Supporters” of seitan, praise it for being nutritionally a powerhouse. In particular, for being an excellent source of plant-based proteins, with almost no fat and no cholesterol.Another major feature of seitan is its versatility in the kitchen, as it can be quickly and easily prepared in a variety of ways.

The bad about seitan

The main concern about seitan it that it’s just plain and pure gluten. In this respect some claim that the human body can easily become over-saturated with gluten, leading to gluten intolerance (aka celiac disease).The fact is that the human body can process gluten, but if over-consumed it can prompt inflammation, and ultimately intolerance.I’ve searched quite extensively and besides the danger of gluten oversaturation, I couldn’t find any other major health danger about seitan.However, it should be noted that since gluten is found in many foods available on the market, one should be considerate when adding a food that is 100% gluten to his/her diet.

Considerations

I was kind of surprised about how little research has been conducted on seitan. Truth is, there’s no published study regarding seitan. On the other side, there’s a lot of literature on gluten. This should come as no surprise at all, since the number of individuals suffering from celiac disease has increased exponentially in the last of decades.All in all gluten is not unhealthy but I wouldn’t base my diet on it. I seldom eat it, and will likely continue to do so even in the future (being an omnivore I don’t really need meat substitutes).However, if you’re vegan or vegetarian, I would recommend not to exceed with seitan consumption, just to avoid the potential development of gluten intolerance.

Actually humans are not real omnivores, our body can just digest meat that is all. All the Gluten you can eat is not as dangerous as cow milk, red meat, fish, eggs and so on. And no one eats seitan so much it becomes too much, just like no one eats red meat every meal of the day.

I totally agree with you. As far as I was taught in anthropology (and we know facts often change but this made sense to me) humans ate meat in severe survival situations, I'm speaking of pre ice age type of survival. Meat is not easily digested by humans at all and kills a good many and good riddance I say. Its purely gluttonous addiction. One heart, one soul, we are one.

My comment is a little bias (I just finished eating some seitan tacos), but who ever commented about not having it every day like red meat is absolutely correct. Just like everything else, it's in moderation. I love seitan because of its versatility. If anything, it just adds texture. If you haven't tried it, I would recommend it. I make it in so many different ways, but if you're good at making tacos, I'd just substitute your meat or tofu with seitan and give it a try. I think you'll be surprised.

I usually use it for things like making taquitos. It's generally easier to handle and roll than bean taquitos and the flavor is easier than marinating tofu. It's just an ease factor that I keep it on hand. If I make it more than twice a month that would be a lot. So I doubt I'll ever over eat it. Just a handy item to keep on hand when tired after a long hard day of physical work.

I'm not a vegan, nor am I a vegetarian, however lately I've gotten into making my own seitan from scratch as a cheap protein. I use soup broth instead of water, followed by frying it up like I would fry chicken, with a little dijon mustard - I love it and think it's delicious, but don't think that overeating it will be a huge concern, being as any food can grow old on a person. Definitely don't knock a food before giving it a try.

A few corrections: Eating too much gluten does not cause Celiac disease. Celiac disease is a genetic issue, and eating gluten triggers the effects. There's some studies that suggest very early exposure to gluten increases risk of Celiac disease, I haven't seen any (credible) evidence that going on a gluten bender will cause you to get the disease. Also... gluten intolerance and celiac disease are two different things.

That said... seitan is good stuff. I had a seitan 'rueben' today. No reason not to try it.

I adore seitan... my favourite recipes are 'pepperoni', 'bacon' and 'steak' (the last two are made in the bread machine - just press a button and it's done at the fraction of the price). Generally I'll cook up a batch at the weekend, wrap it in clingfilm and slice a bit off each day during the week. I estimate I eat 100g a day.

The nutritional content is awesome! Yes you do need to include other protein sources to get a balance of amino acids, but it's also a good source of iron and calcium, and made up with yeast flakes and flax seed oil (as most of my recipes do) it's also good for Omegas and B vitamins.

Like you I'm intrigued... everything I read on gluten health studies seems to be based on the health impacts of wheat, or other foods *containing* gluten. None have actually looked at pure gluten (or seitan) alone. So how can they pinpoint that gluten is the problem?

Indeed I've found studies debunking gluten research, showing that people diagnosed with NCGS (non-Coeliac gluten sensitivity) had their symptoms relieved by excluding Fodmaps, which are found in wheat, some fruits and yoghurt. So it could well be that gluten has been getting all the bad press that should have been targeted at fodmaps.

I certainly don't see any benefit from excluding pure gluten from my diet and recommend it to anyone with an interest on reducing their impact on the environment / saving money / keeping fit / getting creative in the kitchen :-P

one of the many reasons vegainsm stopped making sense to me as the cure-all health diet they bill it as. once while eating out for brunch i had a giant hunk of seitan, aka pure gluten, masquerading as "chicken fried steak" while my husband ate poached local eggs, fennel-orange slaw and wild salmon. couldn't really rectify in my mind how my superior vegan diet was supposedly healthier at that moment.

You ordered fried chicken and you were surprised when you actually got it....? Come on, girl. Fried anything isn't healthy. Your husband chose an actual healthy dish and here you are comparing oranges and apples. Veganism CAN be enormously healthy when you base your diet off of fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, and, well, you know, things that aren't fried or slathered in sugar. Vegans can be unhealthy as well, given that many unhealthy products we consume today (sugary drinks, non-dairy ice creams, fried stuff) is also qualifiably vegan. Veganism shouldn't make sense only because you want to lose weight or be healthy - veganism should make sense because the environment is suffering enormously for our choices, because animals are suffering enormously for our choices, and because your health can suffer enormously from your choices - especially if you're constantly on a diet high in butter, processed meats, etc.

We make our own seitan and include chicke peas or beans and nutritional yeast in it. I haven't met anyone that doesn't like it. Even my brother, who is rabidly against vegetarianism, likes my seitan burgers. We eat it in waves. We might eat a bunch in one week and then skip it for a month or two. I haven't noticed and difference in my health or my son's health. I think everything in moderation is the key. I've been a vegetarian for +10 years and seitan was a welcome addition to our list of foods we enjoy. Great texture and very satisfying. Plus it's easy to change its flavour.

According to google that is correct. It might just be in the powder form before it is mixed with water. It is still 75g of wheat protein gluten. People have been eating bread for a long time so it's hard to say if gluten is that bad. One minute coconut oil is bad and the next it is good for us. Also animals are being raised so much differently than they were just 30 years ago, whos to say what effects that will have on our bodies? Atleast there is no risk of food poisoning like with animal products. Either way seitan is a pain to make so it probably would only be made once in awhile anyway.

I think there must be something wrong about gluten as every time I ate seitan, I literally puked, I don't know yet if I have celiac disease or not, but besides that in my opinion it tastes horrible, not only cooked by myself but also at vegan restaurants... I couldn't make it, although I tried because of the protein.

Over the past year I've eaten homemade seitan nearly every day with no ill effects. I mix it with chickpea flour to make up for the lack of lysine. I also mix in ground jalapeno, and other spices, and it ultimately is boiled in a stew. The pic used for this article makes it look horrible. Also, people don't develop celiac disease, they're genetically predisposed for it. Meaning they either have it or they don't based on their genetic make-up. The increase in cases, might be due to gluten being more prevalent in a western diet. I suspect some cases of "gluten intolerance" is due to the media hype surrounding gluten and the nocebo effect, that is not to discount people who actually are negatively predisposed.

Gluten just isn't a good food to eat a lot of. You could eat it once in a while, but the human body quickly gets overloaded with gluten and that can cause inflamation which is pretty much the precusor to all diseases like cancer and stuff. I'd not eat it. You would not feel ill effects from it unless you ate a lot of it, like the lady who eats it everyday...even then it would few years for the damage from inflamation to show up. If not home made, its very highly processed and salty too, so probably something to eat very occasionally.

I started eating it when living in Asia, in Thailand and S Korea. There's a long history of people eating seitan and tofu over thousands of years in SE Asian and China - I always looked at it like they would know if there was a long term problem or not. Never good to eat too much of anything but there's a whole load more evidence to show what a large amount of red meat eaten regularly does to you.

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